Where did viruses come from, according to Young Earth Creationists?Okay, but horizontal gene transfer among multicellular organisms is so rare that it wasn't even detected until a few years ago. One can postulate, without evidence, huge numbers of changes that could eventually make things sound plausible (e.g. viruses that can repeatedly infect germline tissues across a wide range of species and cause no sterility and (on and on and on)). If this is the best answer out there--and for all I know it could be--it's worth noting that it's very speculative (to be charitable).

Oct31

comment

Where did viruses come from, according to Young Earth Creationists?@Waggers - I agree in principle, but the examples weren't of something that would be useful in an unfallen context. Infection by herpes makes you less likely to die of plague? Interesting...but it leaves the "original intended nature" conjecture unsupported (unless the original intended nature was that they would play a role after the fall).

Why do Christians need to promote their religion to non-believers?Religions that don't encourage their followers to convert others (and don't make up for it by slaughtering, invading, and colonizing) tend to die out. Thus, you would expect every major religion to have an element of proselytizing. Also, it's human nature to share things that seem beneficial or important. The interesting cases are the widespread religions that don't do this much (e.g. Buddhism). I'm not saying that it's not interesting to know the Christian justification, but the universal pattern should also be recognized.

How is it that someone who lived thousands of years ago can “represent” me?@warren - So the question was "How is it logical?" and your answer is "You can't tell."? In order for that to be a good answer, it would be nice to have more justification for the claim that we can't know (or even guess at) the reasoning and/or more explanation of at least what God's standard is for transferral of responsibility.